Research: Fixes for bugs in the unit file

[therother]

The intention of this thread is much the same as the Fixing the trait bugs. It's strictly for bugs in the unit file. Discussion of various issues (such as historical accuracy) can take place in the Colesseum - that's what it's there for.

Also as before, the intention is to come to a consensus for solutions to the bugs, and to release a patch to implement them.

These are the threads that have been formed from splitting posts from this thread:

• Discussion of Praetorian recruitment (from Ludus Magna)

[Kraxis]

Thracian normal and upgraded bodyguards are the same. Well they use the same stats... Maybe not a bug, but a very odd feature as all other factions gets upgraded.

[Bob the Insane]

Those &*%$ing Egyptian Desert Axemen!!!!

Personally i have modded them to reduce their armour and change it from metal to leather. I have put them more in line with the Desert Cavalry with whom they share the same models. I do recognise that these guys are reasonable high up the tech ladder so I have boosted their Defence stat to compansate... It works well, they are still pretty hard but are no longer practically immune to missile weapons...

type egyptian infantry
dictionary egyptian_infantry ; Desert Axemen
category infantry
class heavy
voice_type Light_1
soldier egyptian_infantry, 40, 0, 1
officer egyptian_standard
attributes sea_faring, hide_forest, can_sap
formation 1, 1, 2, 2, 4, square
stat_health 1, 0
stat_pri 10, 5, no, 0, 0, melee, blade, piercing, axe, 25 ,1
stat_pri_attr no
stat_sec 0, 0, no, 0, 0, no, no, no, none, 25 ,1
stat_sec_attr no
stat_pri_armour 3, 6, 4, leather
stat_sec_armour 0, 0, flesh
stat_heat -1
stat_ground 2, 2, -2, -2
stat_mental 8, normal, trained
stat_charge_dist 30
stat_fire_delay 0
stat_food 60, 300
stat_cost 0, 420, 200, 50, 70, 420
ownership egypt

[hrvojej]

*Disclaimer: I am not taking the credits for finding and/or fixing all of the things listed below, I am merely compiling a list of fixes in one place. Thanks to the people who found and/or fixed these, it certainly made my game better*

Ok, here are the fixes. Please remember to back up your files before attempting any changes. If you don’t happen to agree with some of these changes, I guess nobody is forcing you to make them. Though these are IMO things that are not working as intended, but in any case we can save the discussion for the Colosseum.

\Data\export_descr_building.txt file

1) Seleucids are able to recruit armoured elephants everywhere, and this fix limits them to recruiting only in provinces that have elephants as a resource present, just like any other elephant unit.

Under the entry for circus_maximus find the following line:

                recruit "greek elephant cataphract"  0  requires factions { seleucid, }

change that to

                recruit "greek elephant cataphract"  0  requires factions { seleucid, }  and resource elephants

2) Praetorian cohorts are not limited to being recruited only after Marian reforms. This fix limits their recruitment to post-reform period.

Under the entry for imperial_palace find the following line:

                recruit "roman praetorian cohort i"  0  requires factions { roman, }

change that to

                recruit "roman praetorian cohort i"  0  requires factions { roman, }  and marian_reforms

3) Thracian phalanx pikemen would be recruitable at the third tier barracks, but as you upgrade the barracks (or as the AI upgrades them for that matter), you are unable to recruit them any more. This fix enables the recruitment of phalanx pikemen for Thrace in all higher-level barracks.

Under the entries for army_barracks and royal_barracks find the following line:

                recruit "greek pikemen"  0  requires factions { seleucid, macedon, }

change to

                recruit "greek pikemen"  0  requires factions { thrace, seleucid, macedon, }

4) Cavalry auxilia are not limited to being recruited only after Marian reforms. This fix limits their recruitment to post-reform period.

Under the entries for cavalry_barracks, hippodrome and circus_maximus find the following line:

                recruit "roman cavalry auxillia"  0  requires factions { roman, }

change to

                recruit "roman cavalry auxillia"  0  requires factions { roman, }  and marian_reforms

5) Gauls are able to recruit +1 experience naked fanatics in 1st level farming shrines (not temples, just first level shrines). Gauls do not have the ability to build farming temples at all, and it's only linked to shrines (not upgraded temples), so this fix eliminates that quirk.

Under the entry for temple_of_farming_shrine find the following line:

                recruit "barb naked fanatics gauls"  1  requires factions { gauls, }

and delete it.

6) Spain has the ability to get Longshield cavarly in custom battles. They do not, however, possess the same ability in the campaign. This fix enables them to recruit Longshield cavarly in the campaign as well.

Under the entries for cavalry_barracks, hippodrome and circus_maximus find the following line:

                recruit "carthaginian medium cavalry"  0  requires factions { ct_carthage, }

change to

                recruit "carthaginian medium cavalry"  0  requires factions { ct_carthage, spain, }

7) Spain has the ability to get onagers in custom battles. They do not, however, possess the same ability in the campaign. This fix enables them to recruit onagers in the campaign as well.

Under the entries for archery_range, catapult_range and siege_engineer after the following line:

                recruit "carthaginian peltast"  0  requires factions { spain, }

add this line

                recruit "carthaginian onager"  0  requires factions { spain, }

\Data\export_descr_unit.txt file

8) Since 1.2, horse archers and related units are not able to fire on the move any more. This fix enables them to do so again, with a side-effect of changing the "ranged attack" cursor to spear-like one instead of the bow-like one. The fix for the elephant archers is still not known.

For the following unit types:

barb chariot light briton
barb horse archers scythian
barb horse archers slave
barb noble horse archers scythian
barb scythian noblewomen scythian
east persian cavalry
east cataphract archer
east horse archer
east chariot archer
egyptian bedouin
egyptian chariot archer
egyptian general's bodyguard early
rebel amazon chariots
merc horse archers
merc bedouin archers

find the line

stat_pri_attr    no

change to

stat_pri_attr    thrown

9) Since 1.2, generals upgrade their bodyguards after Marian reforms. However, this ability is missing for the special upgraded generals of Scythia and Pontus. This fix corrects that.

For the following unit types:

barb scythian general scythian
east pontic general

find the line

 
attributes       sea_faring, general_unit, hide_forest, hardy

change to

attributes       sea_faring, general_unit, hide_forest, hardy, general_unit_upgrade

\Data\descr_model_battle.txt file

10) Spanish family members appear on the battlefield wearing blue - a stark contrast to the brownish color of the rest of the army. This fix enables them to wear their faction's colors.

Find the following line:

;texture				spain, data/models_unit/textures/officer_celt_general_spain.tga

change to

texture				spain, data/models_unit/textures/officer_barb_general_spain.tga

\Data\world\maps\campaign\imperial_campaign\descr_mercenaries.txt file

11) Due to the typo, one mercenary pool was missing the mercenary horse archers that were supposed to be there. The fix here corrects this by replacing the " ' " symbol with "1" in the entry where the maximum number of merc units is specified. Note: however, it could have been that the maximum umber of units was intended to be 2, we don't know.

Under the entry for pool Armenia find the following line:

	unit merc horse archers,			exp 0 cost 800 replenish 0.1 - 0.18 max ' initial 0

change to

	unit merc horse archers,			exp 0 cost 800 replenish 0.1 - 0.18 max 1 initial 0

Have fun!

edit: Added short descriptions of bugs and fixes.
Cheers,

[vs the world]

Good start to the thread, hrvojej, however can I suggest explaining what each of the fixes are supposed to change?

[player1]

4) Cavalry auxilia are not limited to being recruited only after Marian reforms. This fix limits their recruitment to post-reform period.

Under the entries for cavalry_barracks, hippodrome and circus_maximus find the following line:

                recruit "roman cavalry auxillia"  0  requires factions { roman, }

change to

                recruit "roman cavalry auxillia"  0  requires factions { roman, }  and marian_reforms

I don't think CA intended to have them in post-marius time only.
Otherwise 1st stables upgrde, would give ZERO benefits (now it gives cavalry auxilla).
Other stables upgrades at least give better experience to Equites.

[Simetrical]

Desert Axemen have 2 shield points, but they don't have a shield in-game. To fix this, find the following line in export_descr_unit.txt for egyptian_infantry:

stat_pri_armour  5, 5, 2, metal

And change it to:

stat_pri_armour  5, 5, 0, metal

Desert cavalry have a unit size of 40. All other cavalry (that I know of) have a unit size of 27. To fix this, find the following line in export_descr_unit.txt for egyptian_cavalry:

soldier          egyptian_cavalry, 40, 0, 1

And change it to:

soldier          egyptian_cavalry, 27, 0, 1

-Simetrical

[Pode]

I'd have sworn my desert axes had the same puny shield as the skirmshers. Mine have an armor line of

stat_pri_armour 0, 7, 3, flesh

They're wearing only a skirt (armor 0), are heavy infantry (defnese skill 7 similar to other non-elite but quality troops), are wearing the same small shield graphic as the skirms (shield 2), and now don't make that ridiculous plinking sound when arrows hit their invisible force fields.

To atone for this nerfing, I made them the only one-handed axemen in the game with armor-piericng axes, so their attacks are 50% stronger vs armored troops (like Seleucid armored elephants and cataphracts, maybe?)

stat_pri_attr ap

Along the same lines, I removed the pharoah's guard's bonus for their invisible shield and gave 3 points to armor and 2 to def skill, but shield of 0, for no net nerf.

[player1]

Doesn't flavor text for custom battles says that DA are heavily armored troops?
Would that mean that CA intended them to be armored, but gave them a little problematic clothing.

[Kraxis]

Doesn't flavor text for custom battles says that DA are heavily armored troops?
Would that mean that CA intended them to be armored, but gave them a little problematic clothing.

It does indeed (now changed in mine)... But at the same time the normal description doesn't say anything about armour, but it does say they are good against armoured opponents. So you can take your pick. I just go with the look of the unit. I think more than one person was working on the DA and they got mixed up at some point.

I changed the DA and PG just like Pode did (interesting we did the same thing) but I made DA sound like flesh like Heavy Peltasts. And yes they do have shields.

Merc Beduin Archers are given a shield stat but they have none. To make up for the loss I gave them two points in def.

Pontic Phalanx Pikemen are only 40, the cost fits it, but I'm not certain that they are supposed to be smaller. In fact I think they are a relic of an earlier development that didn't get upgraded later on.

[R3dD0g]

3) Thracian phalanx pikemen would be recruitable at the third tier barracks, but as you upgrade the barracks (or as the AI upgrades them for that matter), you are unable to recruit them any more. This fix enables the recruitment of phalanx pikemen for Thrace in all higher-level barracks.

Under the entries for army_barracks and royal_barracks find the following line:
Code:

recruit "greek pikemen" 0 requires factions { seleucid, macedon, }


change to
Code:

recruit "greek pikemen" 0 requires factions { thrace, seleucid, macedon, }

In this change, should the header line

army_barracks requires factions { ct_carthage, armenia, pontus,, egyptian, greek, roman, }

be changed to include the thrace faction?

[hrvojej]

In this change, should the header line

be changed to include the thrace faction?

Nope - "greek" (as in Greek culture) includes Thrace as well.

[Epistolary Richard]

On the topic of some units have their Post-Marian tags omitted, I recall discussions over the fact that the Armenians, the Seleucids and the Numidians can build legionaries before the Romans can, even though they're supposed to have been copied from them.

Has a consensus been reached as to whether this was a 'feature', a mere oversight not worth correcting, or a bug?

[HarunTaiwan]

I guess you have to give them credit for having all this in the open...but its sucks to find this stuff out.

[Kraxis]

They also have the wrong shield. The unit graphic shows a hoplon aspis, while in game they have the tiny phalangite salad plate instead. They are getting +5 for the little shield...me thinks CA ran out of time and failed to make a specific model for them so they got stuck with the greek_pike_phalanx. There are quite a few units deserving unique skins/models who didn't get them. I originally didn't feel that the game was a complete rush job, but the more I look at the stats and graphics, the more I see how wrong I was.

Some of the same is probably true for some of the various units such as Bastarnae and some peltasts which are said to be unarmoured, but have greaves and helmets.

And let's not forget the Pharaoh's guard with +5 shield, but no shield. Incidentally, I'm relatively certain that the Desert Axemen were originally intended to use this same skin--hence the high armour stat in 1.0.

I'm tolly in line with your thoughts... It seems that there are more than a lot of units that seems to have been rushed, especially the Desert Axemen (their description doesn't even fit). At least the pontic pikemen have the correct description, but there are a number of other problems with them.
This might also explain why the barbarian units are the same (not in names per se, but in stats). I have made an effort to make the factions bettern in certain departments. For instance the Gauls have better armour than the others. The Germans are mixed in good attacks and stronger charges, the same is true for the Britons while the Dacians are the best defenders (in general, their Falxmen are better than the Thracians), while the Scythians have the best light cavalry (barbarians cavalry) by far.

[Epistolary Richard]

So potential issues for patch so far:

1) The bugs listed by hrvojej, which so far have been agreed with _except_:

2) Cavalry auxilia recruitable before marian reforms

also

3) Desert cavalry unit size larger than other cavalry

4) Pontic Phalanx pikement unit size smaller than other phalanxes

5) Non-Roman legionaries recruitable before marian reforms

6) Discrepancies between unit stats, graphics and descriptions (Desert Axeman, Pharoah's Guard, Merc Bedouin Archers)


I think we all agree that all of 1) are bugs and should go in the patch.

I agree that 2) is incongruous but, as player1 and Red Harvest said, I think it is intentional. I think CA wanted both pre-Marian and post-Marian Roman armies to have missile cavalry and therefore reused the same unit. It's just a shame they called them auxilia.

As I believe it was intentional it's not a bug and shouldn't be included in the patch.

3) & 4) if the cavalry and phalanx unit sizes are constant across _all_ the other types, then I'd agree these are bugs and should go in.

5) similar to 2) it could be the case that CA just wanted Armenia, Seleucia and Numidia to have some heavier infantry mid/late game and used the legionary across the board to save time. If, in spite of their description, they are meant to represent heavier infantry then tying them to the Marian Reforms shouldn't be done.

I can buy this in relation to Numidia and perhaps Armenia, but the Seleucid infantry is quite heavy enough, thank you. In their case, the Seleucid legionaries look like CA was intentionally trying to represent the model of warfare changing from the Hellenistic to the Roman. Therefore Seleucia shouldn't be able to create them before the Romans and they should be tied to the Marian Reforms. And if we tie one to the Reforms we've got to do them all. Bit silly to have the Numidians invent the legionary before everyone else.

IMO it's a bug and the fix should go in the patch.

(But against this, the issue was known about before v1.2 and CA didn't change it then so perhaps this is their intention or perhaps they didn't get round to it )

6) I think the problems here are caused by game balancing and graphics being done separately. Ideally, these discrepancies shouldn't exist, but in trying to correct them we are left with a choice - do we make the stats fit the graphic or the graphic fit the stats?

These stats are obviously how CA intended these units to work, irrespective of the graphic. Changing the stats away from what they were supposed to be, as most fixes do, leads us into the realm of game balancing which I would assume to be beyond the scope of this patch.

(We should also consider that because armour/defence/shield ratings have different effects there are (as this thread has already shown) various different ways of correcting them, each of them as valid as the rest.)

So we should really be changing the graphic, but doing that is a whole new ball-game and probably even further beyond the scope of this patch.


Because I don't consider them bugs but they are nevertheless annoying, I suggest they be included in a second patch which would have a wider brief of correcting these stat/graphic discrepancies where more personal judgement is involved in the solution.

Such a patch could also do something about issues like the Roman cavalry auxilia, by creating a pre Marian version of the unit that was called something different (ie, not auxilia).

[player1]

3) & 4) if the cavalry and phalanx unit sizes are constant across _all_ the other types, then I'd agree these are bugs and should go in.

Well, this one is tricky.

But if you look a bit, you'll see that Brit chariots have size of 36, Selucid 18, and Egyptans 54, so not all things are of same size. Interesthing how egypt has both high stack size for chariots and cavalry. Maybe high stack cavalry is there to keep it an option compared to 54 stack chariots. Also look how smaller stack, but better stats Nile Cavalry has almost same cost as desert cavalry.

While there is some reasoning for cavalry, there are numerios infantry units of size 120, so why not have one such phalanx.

Personnaly, I'm not for altering this. At least not for a fix patch that should not alter the rule if probably working as intended.

I can buy this in relation to Numidia and perhaps Armenia, but the Seleucid infantry is quite heavy enough, thank you. In their case, the Seleucid legionaries look like CA was intentionally trying to represent the model of warfare changing from the Hellenistic to the Roman. Therefore Seleucia shouldn't be able to create them before the Romans and they should be tied to the Marian Reforms. And if we tie one to the Reforms we've got to do them all. Bit silly to have the Numidians invent the legionary before everyone else.

Don't forget that highest level Selucid barrack upgarde won't do the thing if legions are not there. Same thing to other nation legons. Removing them gives emptiness on some barrack levels.

So, no, no if you ask me.

[player1]

Many Selucid pike units also have 120 stak size, so one such Pontus unit is NOT a bug.


And forget my "chariot rant", I just realized that different chariots have different number of crew.


As for Desert Axeman, it has mostly worse stats then Numbian Cavalry, with only armor piercering as redeeming quality, but it still costs 540, compared to 420 gold for Numbians.

So, I would say weird stack, but still balanced.

[Kraxis]

Many Selucid pike units also have 120 stak size, so one such Pontus unit is NOT a bug.


As for Desert Axeman, it has mostly worse stats then Numbian Cavalry, with only armor piercering as redeeming quality, but it still costs 540, compared to 420 gold for Numbians.

So, I would say weird stack, but still balanced.

Ok the Seleucid phalanx units that are smaller are the Militia Hoplites. All hoplites are fewer than the pikeformations. All but the Pontic pikes. That seems odd to me. About the Desert Cavalry (not Desert Axemen people)... AP is very powerful. Remove half of any unit's armour. Imagine that against the Cataphracts or Armoured Hoplites... Nasty! But obviously the DC needs to be made cheaper at smaller sizes. And since they are available earlier (aren't they?) it is perfectly ok that they are weaker.

[player1]

Still, it's the cost that makes them balanced (not to mention their pathetic charge bonus).
Reduce the stack, reduce the cost.

Although I see it more as a modwork, then a fixwork.

[hrvojej]

I don't know why all the fuss about the unit sizes? They seem to have a logic behind them for me. Egyptian units (you all seem to have forgotten the bowmen, btw) represent Egypt's manpower - the ability to raise a large number of levies quickly. They basically overwhelm you, not with quality, but with numbers. And increasing unit size is one of the viable ways to simulate this.

Pontic pikemen are the only phalanx pikemen not recruited by a Greek culture faction. So, less people is trained to fight like phalangites, hence making the units smaller. Again, basically a (specialized) manpower issue. If you want, you could even rationalize it by stating that the lowest-tier units of Pontus are not hoplites/phalangites either, so not enough people are trained to fill the ranks later.

And nobody mentioned Scythian noble women, a 18 (wo)men unit of cavalry. Again, makes sense to me. How many noble women warriors would they have as opposed to noble men warriors?

And what about the specialized units having 12, 16, etc. men? I don't think we want to go there with something that should evolve into a "community patch". Those are tweaks based on a preference, not fixes, IMHO.

[Simetrical]

Out of precisely fifty cavalry units (not counting generals, elephants, or chariots, but counting camels and duplicate units), two have a unit count other than 27—Scythian Noble Women, with 18, and Desert Cavalry, with 40. Unless somebody can come up with anything that sets these two units apart from the 96% of cavalry that have a unit size of 27, I think they should be changed (but with no changing of their other stats).

It's sorta similar with long_pike units, with two important (but related) differences: there are only five units in the game with long pikes, and the percentage that has the "standard" unit size is therefore a lot lower (80%). Also, the Pontic pikemen were also clearly intended to be inferior (-110 cost, -80 upkeep, and same building level), but their +3 shield makes them strictly superior to ordinary Phalanx Pikemen if their number is raised (and even if you remove that, they'd still be strictly better than Greek pikemen due to the cost). Based on this, I think that a unit size of 40 is in keeping with the developers' intent.

-Simetrical

[Epistolary Richard]

Non-Roman Legionaries

Don't forget that highest level Selucid barrack upgarde won't do the thing if legions are not there. Same thing to other nation legons. Removing them gives emptiness on some barrack levels.

The highest level barracks would only be empty pre-Marian reforms. After the Marian reforms you could build non-Roman legionaries normally.

I've gone back and forth a bit on this one, but given the numerous references to them being "copies of the Roman originals" (which admittedly is not conclusive) I just can't get behind the possibility of the Numidians being the first to field the legionary. It's just illogical, captain.

Small Pontic Pikemen
There's been some good stat analysis, and while that's not the be-all and end-all I feel pretty comfortable with the smaller unit size.

@ Kraxis, what are your thoughts in light of the previous posts?

Large Desert Cavalry
I note the point about the Scythian noblewomen, but I would consider that it would be far more likely that a rogue 40 could find its way in there, rather than an 18.

But equally, their higher cost over the Nubian cavalry must contribute to something if they should be the same size as other cavalry units.

I think where it's not clear if it's a bug or not we have to err on the side of caution and leave the game as is.

Cavalry Auxilia
Any other comments?

@ hrvojej, I know you just reported it, but are you happy that perhaps they're supposed to be recruitable pre-Marian and that Auxilia is just an unfortunate name?

[hrvojej]

I am of an opinion that the abberant unit sizes are intentional. As I said, it has a logic behind it for me, and also the associated costs match the sizes.

I'm ok with having cav auxilia pre-Marius, though this is something that will remain changed in my own game.

Also, Illyrian mercs are missing their skirmisher mount effects. Though here I'm not sure whether they should have them or not.

I think where it's not clear if it's a bug or not we have to err on the side of caution and leave the game as is.

I agree 100% with Richard on this.

[Kraxis]

Small Pontic Pikemen
There's been some good stat analysis, and while that's not the be-all and end-all I feel pretty comfortable with the smaller unit size.

@ Kraxis, what are your thoughts in light of the previous posts?

Interestingly the pontic pikes are given the skin called east_hoplite, that added to the point that they have a shield bonus of 5 and a smaller size that does not fit the normal pike size, but rather the hoplite size, makes me believe it was intended to be a hoplite from the get go. At some point various devs and designers went their seperate ways. We have already seen the results of that with the Desert Axemen.
If it is because of the smaller population for a greek heritage I think we are taking a very wrong road. First of all there lived lots and lots of greek people in the old colonies, often themselves quite large cities. Plenty of population for a phalanx of pikes.
Second, this should also apply to the Seleucid Empire. There were macedonian and greek colonists but they were not enough to supply the empire with its needs (and they were great).

So I agree that the pontic pikes are intentionally made this way, but only due to several people pulling them each way and never getting the full control of the unit.

Large Desert Cavalry
I note the point about the Scythian noblewomen, but I would consider that it would be far more likely that a rogue 40 could find its way in there, rather than an 18.

But equally, their higher cost over the Nubian cavalry must contribute to something if they should be the same size as other cavalry units.

I think where it's not clear if it's a bug or not we have to err on the side of caution and leave the game as is.

Indeed... We have already seen one case of a person mixing up Desert Cavalry and Desert Axemen. I find it very possible that he is not the first case. And 40 is after all the size of the Desert Axemen.
Also it is the normal practice that the devs work at different jobs. So some create the unit, some give it stats and some balance the units with costs at some point (hopefully after some balancetesting). So if a dev in the stat department by accident made the Desert Cavalry bigger the next guy in the cost department wouldn't know something odd was up, so he would just give them a 'correct' cost. This of course applies to the pontic pikes as well.

About the immitation legionaries.
None of them were really made post-Marius. The Seleucids fell long before Marius was even a grown man. Numidia had become more of a special province and Armenia had been noticing the Roman advance against the Seleucids.
But given the Silver Shields are made to look like Legionary Cohorts I think it is far too much work to make them into a less able unit (would need another skin). Also this way they become a nice special unit. The Armenian and Numidian legionaries fit well enough and thus I see no need to change their recruitment.
Also we should not put too much emphasis on the name 'Legionaries'. While the later Roman infantry was called that they were also called that prior to Marius. They just had a specific name that told people where they stood in the line (there is a logic to the names). Hastati, Principes and Triarii existed long after Marius had died, but by then in name only. As the allied infantry was arrayed in cohorts rather than legions it was only the Roman troops that could be called legionaries, and since they were now all the same it made sense to be calling them legioanries rather than Hastati, Principes and Triarii (those terms were most likely relegated to a strictly military parlor at high command when discussing tactics and strategy).

[Epistolary Richard]

So I agree that the pontic pikes are intentionally made this way, but only due to several people pulling them each way and never getting the full control of the unit.
...
Also it is the normal practice that the devs work at different jobs. So some create the unit, some give it stats and some balance the units with costs at some point (hopefully after some balancetesting). So if a dev in the stat department by accident made the Desert Cavalry bigger the next guy in the cost department wouldn't know something odd was up, so he would just give them a 'correct' cost. This of course applies to the pontic pikes as well.

Hmmm... if this is the case then it would make it very difficult to determine what the original design intention was behind the unit because the costing will actually be balanced for the 'flawed' stats.

Nevertheless, we do what we can.

I think that we've come to a consensus on the following:
Roman Cavalry Auxilia - misleading name but not intended to be Post-Marian only and therefore shouldn't be changed in the community patch
Pontic Pikemen - incongruous unit size might be there for various reasons but the lower costing implies a smaller unit and therefore shouldn't be changed in the community patch

That being said, I'll certainly be looking to make some adjustments to my own personal game from the issues raised so far.


Large Desert Cavalry
I've done a side-by-side on this:

                   Desert Cavalry	Nubian cavalry
unit size	         40		27
mount		light		medium		
primary		7, 3, mace	9, 8, spear
attr		ap	
secondary	0		9, 3, sword		
pri armour	344 leather	064 flesh
sec armour	00 flesh	             01 flesh	
mental		4, trained	8, untrained	
cost		540		420

The Nubian cavalry seems pretty much superior in every respect (though slightly slower and more vulnerable to being shot at) apart from the ap ability.

The question is: do people think that the ap ability on its own makes up for the lower attack (7 lower charging, 2 lower in combat), 50% lower mental and is worth an extra 29% on the unit cost?

IMO no. So I think the 40 may have gone in by accident, but the cost has obviously been determined with the 40 unit size in mind.

Non-Roman legionaries

As for the legionaires...this one is tricky, because the basis for them is really Roman influence in their regions. When Rome began to enlist areas as allies, they started raising some of their own legions. Some of this predates the reforms (in the case of Numidia and perhaps Greece IIRC.) I don't think there is a single "correct" answer.

But given the Silver Shields are made to look like Legionary Cohorts I think it is far too much work to make them into a less able unit (would need another skin). Also this way they become a nice special unit. The Armenian and Numidian legionaries fit well enough and thus I see no need to change their recruitment.

I'm happy to concede this one. Damn silly to have all the references to them being copies of the Roman original though.

So, not for the community patch, but like hrvojej's cavalry auxilia I'll keep this one for my personal game.


Sarmatian Mercenaries
Let's have a look at this one. Sarmatian Mercenaries are obviously supposed to be identical to Scythian Noblemen and they are, except that they're missing:

mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4

which is common across all other cavalry.
So, I agree with this. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Illyrian Mercenaries
I agree with this one as well. All the other peltast types have:

mount_effect     elephant +6, chariot +6

apart from the Illyrian mercenaries. It's a bug and should be fixed.


And another one to consider
Wardogs
Much as I'd like to see the mangey mutts put out of their misery...
As far as I can tell, the dogs resource doesn't do anything. To recruit camels, you need the camels resource; to recruit elephants, you need the elephants resource, but to recruit dogs you don't need the dogs resource.

I would suggest adding the dogs resource requirement to all the wardogs entries in export_descr_buildings:

recruit "barb wardogs briton"  0  requires factions {  britons, }  and resource dogs

[player1]

Sarmatian Mercenaries
Let's have a look at this one. Sarmatian Mercenaries are obviously supposed to be identical to Scythian Noblemen and they are, except that they're missing:

mount_effect     elephant -8, camel -4

which is common across all other cavalry.
So, I agree with this. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Well, elephants and camels are supposed to scare horses, so it is indeed a bug.

Illyrian Mercenaries
I agree with this one as well. All the other peltast types have:

mount_effect     elephant +6, chariot +6

apart from the Illyrian mercenaries. It's a bug and should be fixed.

Don't agree.

They don't have in their description bonus agains elephants and chariots, compared to other peltasts.

So they are really supposed to be special in some way.

[Epistolary Richard]

It's a good point. We have seen discrepancies with descriptions before, but at least it's one piece of evidence towards their intention.

I thought it may have something to do with the formation as I believe the bonus is supposed to represent the fact that elephants and chariots are less effective against loosely formed skirmishers who can jump out the way and throw spears at them. The formation for most peltasts are 1.6, 2, 3.2, 4, 3, square whereas Illyrian mercenaries are 1.2, 1.2, 2.4, 2.4, 4, square.

There are however two other units with that formation (Heavy Peltasts and Mercenary Peltasts) and they both still get the mount bonus.

[hrvojej]

The unit "barb archer slave" has an officer associated with it, in the line

officer          barb_warguard

whereas none of the other archer warbands has an officer. The officer turns up wrongly anyway, as a blue chosen swordsman. I think this line should be deleted, or at least an officer should be changed (maybe to barb_standard, but I don't think so, since none of the regular, i.e. not chosen, archer warbands have one).

[Epistolary Richard]

It's definitely atypical for higher-tier units to cost less than ones beneath them as in this case. I might play around with the numbers a bit tomorrow to see if we can get a rough idea on weighting.